


chronic exposure

by kosy



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Comes Back Wrong, Gen, POV Third Person, Prompt Fill, Season/Series 07, Stream of Consciousness, she's having a bad time and she is making it everyone else's problem!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosy/pseuds/kosy
Summary: Before, she didn’t make this journey alone, but this isn’t before.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	chronic exposure

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone! this was written for the sensory prompt "darting shadows in the corner of your eye" sent in by baliset on here (kentuckycorpsereviver on tumblr). it's a quick & a little bleak, but i hope you all enjoy regardless!

It’s just the sort of thing where Jaylen’s not quite sure if she’s imagining it but there’s a certain feeling to the—

—she’s walking home late, alright, because in blaseball the games run late and you walk home in the dark and that’s the way of things, and it doesn’t feel dangerous. Before, she didn’t make the journey alone, but this isn’t before. She can’t remember the last time she was scared of anything as mundane as a dark alleyway, she can’t remember the last time she was scared of anything at all, she can’t remember the last time her pulse so much as sped up, she can’t remember her _pulse—_

—but there’s movement in the shadows. Just in her periphery. And she trusts her senses if nothing else, and there really is nothing else now. Her body must know where the danger is. In the way she always shivers just before a player goes up in smoke, in the way her fingertips buzz when somebody’s stealing a base behind her, in the way her breath catches when she looks herself in the mirror at just the wrong angle and sees the mess of blood and scorched bone where her face is supposed to be. So if her eyes tell her there’s movement in the shadows then somebody is there. Somebody is there which of course means somebody is there for _her—_

—what are they gonna do, try and stop her? Nothing stops and she doesn’t know if she can stopherself, doesn’t know if she even wants to—

—there’s always somebody. Hunting her or haunting her or both. And either way they will take her apart vertebrae by vertebrae, they will split her open and catalog each disparate part and all fight among themselves for the remains. Organs and eyes even the carrionbirds wouldn’t touch but of course _they_ aren’t above it, they want to hold her blood in their mouths until they choke because it’s _her blood—_

—of course she’s not going to walk faster, she won’t give them the fuckin’ satisfaction. Instead she stops dead— _ha_ —dead still under a streetlamp and stares into the unlit storefronts, the gaps between the buildings where a body could hide or be hidden, the overflowing dumpsters. She takes her hands out of her jacket pockets, lets them hang loosely at her side. Waits for it to show itself, except—

—even with the pale glow of the streetlight there’s nothing. She shifts stance anyway, curls her fingers into loose fists. Like this, she can feel herself alive, and she thinks about the skin over her knuckles splitting open, and she thinks about blood spattering onto her teeth, and she thinks about bruising, and she thinks about the crack of bone under her hands, and she thinks about burn scars; she thinks about doing the fucking job herself instead of waiting for them to burn on their own but nobody comes out of the dark—

—so maybe it was her eyes playing tricks on her but if she can’t trust her senses what can she trust? There’s nothing else and her body knows where the danger is because it _has_ to know where the danger is but if the danger is everywhere and always then when does she—

 _—This isn’t dangerous_ , she thinks, a little frenzied, and she laughs too loud and too hard in the stillness. The shadows aren’t moving. Nobody’s there. It’s a quiet night in Seattle, and sure there are some cars and scatterings of people but it’s all a distant murmur. No threat or at least nothing immediate. She is alone. No ghosts in the shadows. No avenging angels. No fire. She will not be hurt here and will not hurt others. Because _this isn’t dangerous, this isn’t dangerous—_

—and that shouldn’t make her as furious as it does. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! you can find me on tumblr @fourteenthidol (and maybe send in another prompt), and if you were to leave a comment/kudos it'd make my day! <3


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